Bacterial overgrowth often occurs in preterm infants, critically ill patients and elderly and is one of the major causes of life-threatening events like nectrotizing enterocolitis, bacterial translocation, septicemia and reduced availability of nutrients.
In the earliest stages of bacterial overgrowth, bacteria that usually only inhabit the large intestine start to immigrate through the ileocecal valve and colonize the ileum. In a later stage, even the jejunum may be invaded. In general, colonization of the small intestine by bacteria is disadvantageous to the host, even in case of probiotic bacteria like certain Lactobacillus or Bifodobacterium strains that may have a beneficial impact to the host if present in the large intestine.
WO 200022945 (SOC PROD NESTLE SA) reports a new protein isolated from milk which has antiinflammatory, antibacterial and antiallergic properties and is therefore useful for preventing and treating inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis and other diseases.
JP 08059500 (MORINAGA MILK IND CO LTD) teaches a new mixture of peptides collected from lactoferrin hydrolyzates which has specific physicochemical and biological properties of preventing the migration of enteric bacteria from the intestine into other organs.
JP 05304929 (MORINAGA MILK IND CO LTD) discloses a way to improve abnormal bacterial compositions of human or animal intestine flora. The liquid or fluid food according to JP 05304929 contains bovine lactoferrin.
In general, protein hydrolyzates are well known and they are utilized in liquid formulas mainly to decrease allergenicity of the corresponding intact proteins. For example, milk protein hydrolyzates are part of nutritional formulas for people with allergy against antigens of milk proteins.
To date the problem of bacterial overgrowth is tackled by a drug therapy or, more recently, by other physiologically active substances that may be also isolated or purified from milk (e.g. lactoferrin). A drug therapy usually is not very advisable, because it means a strong impact on the body and also affects the bacterial flora of the colon. Hence, a drug therapy not just treats bacterial overgrowth, but annihilates the entire bacterial flora. The drawback of specific active principles, also those isolated from milk, is that they have to be produced or isolated and their uptake has to be exactly dosed, and, finally they may provoke side-effects, too. In addition, these substances are usually used only to treat advanced bacterial overgrowth and are not used for prevention purposes or for treatment of less severe conditions.
Therefore, there is a need for a natural, easy to produce product for the treatment of bacterial overgrowth, which does not involve an expensive purification procedure, which has at the same time nutritional value and which does not include side effects related to a drug therapy. In this sense, there is also a need for a mild treatment, which does not interfere with bacterial growth in the colon, where it is desirable.
After all, there is a need for a nutrient for the manufacture of a nutritional composition for suckling mammals, which promotes an intestinal flora pattern similar to the one present in mammals fed by their mother.
There is also a need of providing such nutrition based on unobjectionable and utilized food products instead of medication or in general pharmalogically active substances.
The present invention addresses the problem of providing nutrition to a patient suffering from bacterial overgrowth or translocation in the intestine and other diseases that are closely linked or direct consequences of bacterial overgrowth. The present invention also has the objective to provide the nutrition on the basis of unobjectionable and nutritionally valuable and advantageous nutrients and food.
It is also an aim of the present invention to provide nutrition to a patient suffering from bacterial overgrowth reducing the use of pharmaceutically active substances to the largest possible extent.